The door alarm chirped the next morning in the room Sheppard had commandeered. Having been still asleep, he started and looked around for danger. When his mind registered that he still remained in bed, he allowed his body to relax just in time to hear the alarm again. "Just a minute," he called. Sliding into a seated position, he reached for his pants to put them on.
It had been a long night. After putting Larrin to bed, Katana filled him in on her conversation with Larrin earlier in the day. Thanking Katana for her insight, John had walked back to the Bridge, if just to be close to Larrin in spirit. He hadn't paid much attention to the time as he spent the next several hours telling the captain's chair where he'd found her about how he felt like a heel. He also apologized for putting her into such a position of embarrassment and promised that if she didn't want to pursue their relationship any further, though brokenhearted, he'd understand. Once exhaustion started to take over, he apologized again to the chair and made his way to these quarters.
Once his pants were on he looked at his watch. Dread set in as he knew exactly who it waited at his door. He was late! Rushing to make himself halfway presentable, even swallowing a bit of mouth wash, he went to the door and waved his hand over its crystals. There she stood, with no evidence to suggest that she'd cried herself to sleep the night before. In fact, there seemed to be a genuinely happy smile on her face.
"Hi!" Larrin's eyes showed a hint of excitement.
"Good morning." John did his dead level best not to growl. Apparently, she read him like a book again, as she giggled at him.
"Would you like to get some breakfast?" It took Sheppard a moment to register what she had just implied. Would you like to be seen with me?
Taken back a little, he scanned the corridor for life and brought out the facts as he knew them. "I thought we were gonna keep this to ourselves?"
"Yeah, well," Larrin started, "I've changed my mind. Is that okay with you?" She appeared to be toying with him and enjoying it.
A classic John Sheppard smirk crossed his face. This is not what I was expecting this morning. Realizing that he'd waited a few moments before answering her, his mind came through with a response. "Sure, but I need to get something first." He stepped closer to her and waved the door closed.
"Oh, what's that?" She was looking up at him and her eyes told him that she knew what was coming. Taking that as permission, John leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. Seconds later when he pulled back, he discovered that they had fully embraced. When he looked into her eyes, he found no shame. "What?" she asked softly.
"Nothing," he whispered moving his body to lead them to the Mess Hall. Turning herself under his arm, she kept one of hers wrapped around his back. When they started walking, it seemed as though their bodies were one, neither restricting the other. While Sheppard enjoyed the silence as the strolled down the hall, he knew they needed to talk. "So, after my stunt last night, I guess the crew knows about us." Might as well get the hard ball out of the way.
"Yeah, well, some of them knew before we started the journey out here." She didn't sound angry.
"Really? I guess dialing the whole galaxy in order to find you wasn't very subtle." He frowned, trying to look sorry.
Larrin laughed as she responded. "No, not really. But it was quite charming." He looked down at her and found her eyes flirting with him. "Though you didn't have to wait two years."
"Had I known it would have been this well received, I would have done it a long time ago. As it was, I took quite a gamble calling you. Your 'playing hard to get' routine didn't leave much room for me to imagine otherwise." John navigated them around the next corner without looking up.
"So we are both blind to what's in front of us. What are we going to do about that?"
"I'll be the first to admit, I have no idea." John previous marriage seemed to be all the proof he needed there.
"Neither do I, but I guess we are probably going to need some rules." He could hear the inner commander coming out in her voice.
Sheppard smiled and allowed a touch of military bearing to come through his. "Yes, rules. Rule number one: no more hiding to get away from conversations like this one."
When she looked back at him, her eyes had narrowed. Clearly she wasn't happy that he got out the first one. "Fine. Rule number two: no more hiding our affections to one another as long as they don't get in the way of the tasks at hand."
John put a thoughtful grin on his face before responding. "Sounds fair. And to keep us out of trouble—rule number three: any quality time must be spent in a public venue." He left the rest unsaid.
She grinned her mischievous grin. "Ah! Okay, but from here on out—rule number four: all rules must be mutually accepted." Her eyes were playing with his again.
As they turned and entered the Mess Hall, Sheppard saw that it teamed with life and that Larrin made no attempt to move away. Enjoying the turn their relationship just took, John tried to close the topic. "Well, okay then. With these rules in place we should be alright." John lifted his arm off her shoulders, feeling a bit awkward showing this much affection with everyone watching.
Apparently that wasn't what she had in mind as she reached up with her free hand, wrapped it around his neck, and pulled him down into another sweet kiss. After a second of awkwardness, he went with it and wrapped her up as well. When she pulled back, cheers and wolf whistles could be heard throughout the Mess Hall.
;-)
I hadn't realized how badly I was hampering them. Larrin smiled at the accomplishment of the last two days. The crew seemed to step it up a notch once she made her relationship with John public. It was almost as if, somehow, the people around her were helping to carry her personal baggage around, which weighed them down, and, in turn, slowed them down. How did I not notice it sooner? Shaking her head at herself, she decided that beating herself up about it wouldn't undo it and looked at the day's results.
They were completely done with tearing out the old hyperdrive internal parts. John and Mila had also done an EVA earlier in the day and had determined that there wasn't much to do on the outside. They could say for certain that the main body of the hyperdrive was fine, the only damage came from what Sheppard called the "Golden BB" that penetrated the hull just beyond the superstructure of the drive. The Wraith burst must have come after the shields in the rear section had failed as it sliced it's way to the internal portion of the drive without losing all of its force. One lucky shot, thankfully the Wraith weren't still around to see the effects of it.
Now she stood in bay three. Starting tomorrow, the crews, under her watchful eye, and Mila's direction, would visually reconstruct the drive here in the bay. This will give Mila the extra space to work out any adaptions needed before constructing it in place in engineering. John had been right about her, Mila was a whiz when it came to hyperdrives. Larrin had known of her work on Katana's ship, but seeing her work in person...A Rising Star.
Satisfied with what she saw, Larrin touched her communicator. "John, where are you?" She waited several seconds with no response. When she moved to touch her communicator a second time it came to life.
"Yeah, I'm finishing getting cleaned up. Meet you at the Mess Hall." The communicator went dead.
"Very well, I'll see you there." On her way, Larrin allowed herself to think about him, her, and them. John's work ethic hadn't budged from the quality he'd given the first three days, and when they were "off the clock" as he put it, he didn't push their relationship past set boundaries. Their friendship, outside of the affections, appeared to be growing as well. As she rounded the corner to enter the Mess Hall she found an unpleasant thought rising. She scanned the crowd and found him at a table with two servings of the evening meal. Walking up to the table she asked, "May I join you?"
He'd watched her come across the room, but it wasn't until now that his eyes lit up, "I'd say yes, but I'm expecting someone very special." It was all over his face, he was playing with her.
Not batting an eye, she sat down. "Smarty. So," she waited until he was looking at her, "I have the topic tonight."
"Oh yeah, what do you want to talk about tonight?" They had moved passed the surface stuff.
She took a bite, chewed and swallowed, before she presented it. "So what happens when we are done here, and to clarify, what happens to us?"
Sheppard ate a couple more bites before he answered her. "Well, you see, that would be the one aspect of this whole thing that I haven't worked out yet. To be fair, though, who knew we'd get this far?"
"Do we, you, want this to continue once we get back to our respective lives?" She hated the question even as she asked it.
"Well, yes, I do. Do you?" She watched as his face contorted to something in between curious and concerned.
Not liking the way the question made him feel she attempted to disarm it, quickly. "Yes, very much and sorry, that was probably not the best way to phrase to question." She witnessed his face go very stoic. Oops! "What I meant was..."
John cut her off. "How far are we willing to go to make this work?" His stare seemed like it penetrated both time and space.
"You okay?" Larrin definitely didn't want him hurt with her over the question. She tried to engage his eyes and after a few moments concern reached hers.
Shaking his head as if coming out of a reverie, John put a grin on his face. "So, who's rule was it that there was no running from emotional conversations?"
Larrin tilted her head slightly and said slowly, "Yours." John, where are you going with this?
He must have read the question through her eyes when he answered, "Then tomorrow night our topic will be about my failed marriage. It should give us some insight on just how far we want to take this." Seeing the pain as he gave his final comment of the night, she would have given anything to take it all back. Later, when he walked her to her state room, he didn't hold back when he kissed her, but she could sense the difference. Knowing that he wasn't running so much as he needed time to put his thoughts together, with their fingers interlaced, Larrin slowly let him go, if only for the evening.
